


Double Fault

by SpaceShaolin



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25242295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceShaolin/pseuds/SpaceShaolin
Summary: Years after Seigaku's historic Nationals win, Kawamura and Fuji find themselves growing up and out of tennis. But amid talks of alternate universes, their middle school days, and each other, it turns out tennis isn't willing to give either of them up yet, in more ways than one.
Relationships: Fuji Shuusuke/Kawamura Takashi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Double Fault

_now._

There’s an alternate universe where Kawamura decides to forego his sushi chef ambitions to give tennis another four years with Seigaku. His father has lengthy talks with him about it, of course – about making decisions and serious commitments, about karate, tennis, the restaurant, and now, tennis again – but there’s an insatiable hunger that plagues this version of Burning Man Kawamura Takashi. It’s a flame that just won’t quit, telling him only to go forward in blazes of glory he knows his body is still capable of.

“And after that?” he’s asked. “What happens after high school?”

Nothing immediately comes to Kawamura’s mind.

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “Maybe I’d have stayed in tennis in one way or another.” The possibilities start to trickle in now, and then, before he knows it, his imagination’s gone running off again. “Or maybe I’d have gone back to the restaurant after a career-ending injury.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“But if I took care of my body like I was always told to, I’d still try to be active. Be a gym instructor or something. Maybe I’ll tag along with Momo and help with his strength conditioning for the pros.”

A hum. “I like Kawamura the Gym Instructor. You’d look good doing that.”

Kawamura chuckles, bashful, but not denying this. “I could coach,” he continues. “Or maybe go pro myself and surprise all of you.”

“That _would_ be surprising.”

“Maybe I’d have an official match against you.”

“You might.”

“Maybe I’d injure your wrist beyond repair.”

“Hmm. You might.” But there’s no guarantee in the statement.

It’s strangely encouraging to Kawamura, so he continues to narrate the fantasy, despite himself. “You’ll have lost,” he says. “First time in your pro career it’s ever happened. But the next day, all the papers will have your name on them, not mine. After all, it’s Fuji Syusuke everyone wants to know about, not Kawamura Takashi.”

Fuji hums again, considering this. It’s hard to tell if he agrees with this turn of events or not. Finally, he asks: “Have you ever thought of a reality where we’re a pro doubles pair instead of rivals?”

Kawamura takes the time to think about this before offering his answer. “No, I don’t think that’ll work,” he says. “It’s too limiting.”

“For me or for you?”

“For both of us.”

Fuji smiles. “That’s right,” he says, tilting his head. “Alternate Universe Kawamura is a lot more passionate about tennis this time, I forgot.”

“Right. All the other power players would’ve gone to play in singles. There wouldn’t be any good opponents left if we continued to play together.” A pause. “And what about you? Have you ever thought about Alternate Universe Fuji?”

Fuji shakes his head. “It’s not for me.” He sips his tea. “Thinking about things like that, I mean. I prefer thinking about things I can see and touch right now. Things I can directly affect.”

Kawamura laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “You would think that.”

“You were always the optimist between us, Taka-san. Even if you still had such a… pragmatic sense about you. It’s something I’ve always admired, to be honest.”

“Thanks.” Kawamura blushes and rubs the back of his head. “But what about you?” he asks. “Don’t tell me you didn’t have dreams of your own. I know you wanted to be great, like the rest of us.”

“I did,” Fuji acknowledges. “But I think I was… less brave about it. Not like you. And I was less certain about a lot of things, too. I mean, you already knew what you wanted to be. I only knew what I didn’t want to be.”

Kawamura nods. “And tennis wasn’t one of them?”

“No.” Fuji shakes his head. “It wasn’t.”

“Oh, well. That’s okay.”

“The burdens of being a prodigy.”

That draws a laugh out of both of them, although Kawamura’s still left reflecting on all the implications left unsaid there.

It’s been a year since they both graduated from high school. Kawamura has since begun his sushi chef training in earnest, while Fuji has gone on to study in university. Neither of them are playing tennis anymore. But while it isn’t the only reason they’re still friends, it’s a topic they keep coming back to every time they meet up.

* * *

_now._

In some ways, it turns out Kawamura’s the most forward-thinking of them all. Even if it was mainly because he’d already had a dream to work towards long before any of the others found theirs.

It was smart of him to duck out of tennis when he did, still riding high on the thrill of that Shitenhouji win and the unbelievable honor of stealing Ishida Gin’s power mantle away from him. Then, he sobered down in time to watch Seigaku march on to their final set of games without him, and it was here Kawamura gained a stunning sense of clarity. After all, lying down on a hospital bed with an assortment of fractures in places he didn’t even know he had didn’t give him much room to do anything else but think.

So think he did, about his future, his tennis, and everything he’d already accomplished, until he got the inexplicable, eerie sense that now would be a good time to hang it up. He’d been thinking about it all year, of course. He’d been fixated on nothing else beyond inheriting the restaurant from his father anyway.

But Kawamura’s final decision was something that was shaped largely in part by tennis. It had to be, if he wanted his three years of devotion to it to be worth something in the end. High school tennis, he realized, was not going to be as simple and dry-cut as middle school, and things would only get much harder from there. It was unshakeable and uncanny, but the gut feeling was there, and it was as instinctive as the acts of bracing his feet on the ground and drawing in a deep breath before letting his Hadoukyou spring loose.

Tennis, a sport that changed with every game, was not the place for someone whose only move was to hit the ball harder than everybody else. There would be no stable future for Kawamura there, just uncertainty upon uncertainty and endless evolution. It would leave him behind eventually, but where most players would only see a challenge, Kawamura knew he was made of different, less hardy stuff than that.

“But you still loved tennis, didn’t you?” Fuji asks.

“What?”

“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone all the way against Shitenhouji.”

Kawamura thinks about it. “I loved the camaraderie. The competition,” he allows.

“You wouldn’t have worked so hard if you didn’t love it.”

“I just wanted to be useful to the team.”

Fuji’s answer comes immediately. “You were never dead weight to us, Taka-san.”

“I know that,” he says, smiling. “But you’re right. Maybe I did love tennis, on some level. It was hard not to. Not when all of you were such freaks about it.”

Fuji laughs, melodic and soft, and it’s enough to lift Kawamura’s spirits.

“Maybe…” Kawamura begins, scratching his cheek idly. He musters the courage to say it, so Fuji won’t have to. “Maybe I was just scared. You know? Tennis wasn’t going to change itself for me overnight. So why should I?”

But Fuji shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s cowardice to take the more realistic option. Running can be a good thing sometimes.”

“Not if you still have regrets about it, I guess.”

“That’s true. Do you?”

“What, have regrets about leaving? Not me. You?”

Fuji takes his time before answering. Then: “No.” He says it again with more conviction: “No, I don’t think I have any.”

Kawamura gives him a searching look. “Well,” he says later, honest and kind. “That’s good, then.”

* * *

_then._

By the time Echizen left middle school to join his upperclassmen in high school, Kawamura had long retired from tennis. He was no longer with them when their new season started, but it wasn’t like the team had any pressing need for him anyway. Power player or no power player, Seigaku ended up winning it all again. And when they did, off they went to Kawamura Sushi to celebrate.

“It’s all because of Taka-san, too!” Momo had warbled then, still overcome with emotion after the win. “Everything I know about power tennis, I learned from him.”

It wasn’t completely true – Momo had learned most of those things on his own just fine. Kawamura had just happened to be with him when the epiphanies started to happen. And while Momo had earned the right to become the team’s resident power hitter, it wasn’t power that helped him win his games. It was all game sense, instinct, and athleticism, and that was all Momo.

Kawamura didn’t say any of this out loud, partly because he was busy serving them all and helping his father with the ingredients. But it was also because he was aware that any comment he’d be making now would be comments coming from an outsider. There were times when he'd stayed a little to watch any game he chanced on while he was out making the stray delivery. But even then, Kawamura understood that his comments, bound to be shallow or generic, would be unwelcome. So, he accepted the praise with a quiet tip of his head, and it didn’t bother him a bit when nobody asked him to elaborate.

Nobody, except Fuji.

“Quite the student you have there, Taka-san,” he said, approaching Kawamura at the main counter. “Sorry.” He adjusted himself on his stool. “Things were getting wild back there. I hope you don’t mind.”

Kawamura glanced at his father to make sure he was still on top of everyone’s orders. He was. “It’s fine,” he said, facing Fuji. “Although you’ll have to wait a bit for your order. Dad’s still finishing up the last ones.” He was due to graduate from high school soon, but it looked like he was still nowhere near graduating from the menial chores the restaurant demanded.

“It’s no problem.” Fuji smiled. “Unless you’d be game to take my order?”

Kawamura laughed. “Ah, Fuji, you know I can’t do that yet.”

“It doesn’t mean I won’t stop asking.”

Behind him, the celebrations continued in earnest. Things had become rowdier anew when Eiji and Momo teamed up to smother an unwilling Echizen with their love and steal some sushi from his plate at the same time. Kawamura set a glass of tea in front of Fuji and looked on at his old team with a mix of envy and fondness.

“We missed you out there,” Fuji said.

Kawamura gave him a look and tried not to snort. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But thanks. If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Fuji affirmed. “You should have seen that big guy Momo had to play with today. Maybe you wouldn’t have had a problem with him.”

“I might have had _some_ trouble.”

“You’re the power specialist, not me.”

Kawamura chuckled, feeling a little brave now. “Weren’t you the one who told me you were doing just fine without Echizen last year? And that he could graduate whenever he wanted?” He raised an eyebrow and wagged it, just to be obnoxious. “But now he’s here and it turns out you needed me, too?”

Fuji scoffed. “It’s always about tennis with you, Taka-san. I thought you were past that already.” He paused and flashed Kawamura a smirk. “Anyway, look.”

Kawamura did and came face-to-face with Fuji’s camera. Fuji took his picture.

“Ah, Fuji!”

Fuji chuckled to himself, tucking the camera back into his bag. “Don’t worry, this one’s just for me. No one else is seeing this.”

“They’d better not,” Kawamura grumbled, but believed him anyway.

Kawamura had always been secure about his place on the team and it was a position he never went out of his way to dwell on – even if it was only as the reserve player they brought out when their opponents looked a little too big for everyone else to handle. Maybe it was something he’d always felt self-conscious about – maybe even resentful, at some point – but that was all so long ago. He’d already made his peace with it by moving on and easing himself out of the lives of the kids he used to play with at the club. 

He never imagined anyone would still be giving him a thought. Tennis was only ever a hobby he became invested in for three years, so it wasn’t something he paid much attention to now, either.

Fuji still did, apparently. “Tennis feels…” he said, after a while. “It feels quieter without you around. Like something’s missing.”

Kawamura smiled at him gently. “High school tennis sounds hard,” he said. “I’m sure the other high schools were tough enough to keep you guys company while I was gone.”

Fuji shook his head, but didn’t push the subject any further. “It might be the English,” he said, smirking suddenly.

“Oh, no,” Kawamura said. “We are not talking about this.”

Fuji laughed and sipped his tea.

When did the conversation start to flow so smoothly between them? Kawamura wasn’t able to say. It was as if they’d always had an easy time talking to each other about things, even if Fuji was an enigma wrapped in a puzzle and Kawamura, a book opened wide to anyone who cared to look.

It was a friendship Fuji must have found easy, too. Easy and safe, where he could open up to Kawamura to talk about things he wouldn’t just share with anybody else. Maybe that was why Fuji had said what he said back then.

“I’m quitting tennis,” he announced suddenly, but with none of the fanfare the statement deserved. He took his time drinking his tea to give Kawamura some time to digest this. “I’ve decided not to go pro. Today was officially the last anyone will ever see of me on the courts.”

Kawamura wished he could say he was surprised. It should have been shocking, but the truth was, Fuji’s decision was something he’d expected from him, in a way. “I see,” he said, careful to choose his next words wisely. He supposed it wouldn’t have made sense to ask Fuji if he had second thoughts now. Even if he might have discovered his passion for the sport late in the game, it was obvious Fuji had given a lot of thought to this. “Do they know?” was what he asked in the end.

It was the right question to ask, it looked like.

Fuji was still smiling, but he was visibly more relaxed than before. “Not yet,” he answered.

Kawamura nodded. “Well.” He jerked his head towards the celebrating team. “At least you went out with a bang, huh?”

Fuji laughed, acknowledging this. “It still doesn’t quite feel like a proper win, to be honest,” he said. “Not without your Burning Mode and broken English.” 

Kawamura flushed, but was barely able to get a reply out before Momo blurted out his response.

“Fuji-senpai, did you say _‘burning?’_ Come on, Taka-san! You gotta pull one out, for old time’s sake!”

“We are _not_ doing that, you moron. Can it, willya?” Kaidoh grumbled, then nodded at Kawamura in apology.

Everyone else laughed at this and cheered for Kawamura a couple of times, until the self-consciousness started to eat at him again. He spied Echizen pulling out a tennis racket from his bag, and took this as his cue to excuse himself to the back to fetch more ingredients for his father.

* * *

_now._

It isn’t unusual to meet up with Fuji every now and then, but if someone had told him, years ago, that Fuji Syusuke would be the only Seigaku teammate he’d remain in close contact with after graduation – well. Kawamura honestly didn’t know how he’d react. Because while they did preserve their odd, special friendship all the way through high school, the thought of having the team’s young genius hang out with the quiet sushi chef-in-training was already so strange on its own. And, much like their friendship, it’s something Kawamura considers surprising, yet still totally expected, that tennis would be the thing to make this possible.

But tennis is not all they talk about when they see each other. And not all of their conversations happen inside Kawamura Sushi. Today, they are taking a walk outside and Fuji is discussing his new life in university.

“It’s been good so far,” he says. “The classes are manageable and I get lots of free time. I think it’s every university’s ulterior motive, you know. They charge you insane amounts of money that pay for next to nothing, and all you get in return is a couple of hand-outs and more questions about the world than ever.”

Kawamura chuckles. “I’m not so sure about that,” he answers. “But you’re making me glad I chose to stick with Kawamura Sushi after high school.”

“You know, sometimes, I think I should have taken up a trade instead, to learn something more practical.”

“A trade, huh? What kind of trade did you have in mind?”

“Well, definitely not something in the restaurant business,” Fuji says, “seeing as you’ve got that one down already, and I’d hate to put you out of a job.”

Kawamura snorts.

Fuji grins and continues. “Actually, I’m not sure what I want. Sometimes, I think of just packing a bag to go travel somewhere.”

“You think of doing a lot of things, don’t you?”

“I like to keep my options open.”

There’s something to be said about how easily they fall into step with each other, Kawamura thinks. Steady and consistent had been how their friendship had been functioning for some time now, so for him, it remains a struggle to pinpoint the exact moment he and Fuji became friends on this special kind of level. The special kind where the playing ground was even and they both knew it; the kind where they could tease each other so openly without worrying about hurt feelings or embarrassed reactions.

Before he knew it, Kawamura had begun to look forward to Fuji’s weekly visits, if only because they’re so effective at giving his every day schedule the boost it needs. But the more he hears about Fuji’s ideas and all the new ground he’s breaking at university, the more insecure he feels about the path he’d chosen to take.

Kawamura can’t help it that he feels this way. And it’s not something he holds against Fuji, either. But the negativity eats at him; reduces him to a chewed-off state that never fails to leave him in a much smaller state than before.

It isn’t the first time Kawamura wonders why Fuji Syusuke, of all people, would choose to hang out with someone like him.

“You…” Kawamura begins. “You don’t think I’m boring, do you, Fuji?”

Fuji slows his pace to look up at him. “No,” he says with a shake of the head. “What makes you say that?”

“Well.” Kawamura shrugs, then scratches his head. “You’re out here doing a lot with yourself – and that’s good! Believe me, I think you should go do all the things you want to do with yourself. But me, in the meantime… I’m just helping out at the restaurant. Like I’ve been doing for all the years you’ve known me now.”

“I don’t think that’s boring,” Fuji says. “Stability isn’t always bad, Taka-san. You’re lucky you already know what you want to do. Not like me. I’m still looking.”

“That’s just it. I know this sounds silly, coming from me, but…” Kawamura trails off. “… compared to you, doesn’t it look like I settled?”

Fuji stops walking to get a proper look at Kawamura.

Kawamura follows suit and slumps without knowing it, rubbing his head and looking at some point that’s just beside Fuji’s ear. “Sometimes,” he says in a voice so soft and small, he half-hopes Fuji doesn’t hear it. “Sometimes I wonder why you’d choose to hang out with me like this, instead of… I don’t know, doing everything you said you wanted to do.”

It takes a while for Fuji to answer, and Kawamura isn’t sure if he’s relieved or incredibly let-down by the delay.

“Or you could just forget everything I said,” he says in a hurry. He tries to laugh, but it comes out all shaky and unsure, and it’s not how Kawamura had wanted it to sound at all. “We can go home now, if you want, I’m pretty sure –”

“Taka-san.”

Kawamura stops talking.

“I don’t know if I did something to make you think all that,” Fuji starts. He bites his lip, looking as unsure as Kawamura is feeling. “If I ever did something to give you the wrong idea… then I’m sorry. But I want you to know that’s not how I feel about you at all. Taka-san. Am I clear?”

“… I… Fuji, I –”

“Taka-san,” Fuji says again. “Do you know how excited I get every weekend when I know I’m about to meet you again? I enjoy all these little walks we take, or all those times we can just stay at your restaurant to talk. Don’t you?”

“O-of course, I do, Fuji! But –”

But Fuji isn’t allowing Kawamura to get a word in at all. “That’s a relief,” he says, smiling. “I thought you were about to say you didn’t want to see me anymore.”

Kawamura feels his the blood in his veins go cold. “That’s…” he stutters. “That’s not it at all, Fuji! I like seeing you every weekend, too.”

“Why, thank you, Taka-san.” Fuji smiles wider. “I do rather enjoy talking to you, did you know that? I know I can always be so honest with you. It’s refreshing. Didn’t you notice that you were the only one at the club I didn’t tease as much as the others?”

Kawamura doesn’t remember noticing. “You teased me sometimes,” he says, a little grudgingly. “And you didn’t tease Tezuka at all, either.”

“Oh, I teased him plenty. He was the one I enjoyed making fun of most of all,” Fuji says. “But you, I could always be honest and straight with. I wasn’t like that with the others. I’m not sure why it was different with you.” He gives Kawamura a considering look. “Maybe it was because you were always so nice to me back then. I knew making you feel bad would make _me_ feel bad. So I tried not to do it.”

Kawamura isn’t sure how that makes him feel. “Well, thanks… I guess,” he says. “But I think I would have been just fine if you didn’t go out of your way to make me feel special.”

Fuji tilts his head, his expression becoming serious. “But that was before, Taka-san,” he says. “Now, it’s… talking with you feels… different. You make me feel… more open. You make me want to be more honest – with you, and with myself. I’m not the same as I was back then. And neither are you. I think that’s made this friendship all the more valuable.”

Kawamura thinks about it. “I… I guess I do feel… safer when I talk to you, Fuji,” he decides.

“And I feel the same,” Fuji says. Kawamura feels his insides melt into warm fuzzy goo. “So please don’t put yourself down like that, Taka-san. You know me, don’t you? You should know I don’t give my friendship out to just anybody.”

“I do know that about you, Fuji, I promise.”

Fuji nods. “Good. So you know how I get when I hear someone say such terrible things about my friends.”

Kawamura goes still.

Fuji grins. He reaches out to pat Kawamura’s arm. “Now that we’re here, I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather spend my afternoons with. Believe me, Taka-san, there’s nobody else. And it’s something I’ll never grow tired of. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, too.”

“No, it’s…” Kawamura takes a breath. He manages to regain just enough control of himself, until he’s sure his voice doesn’t sound so shaky with emotion when he says, “It’s fine, Fuji. Really. Thanks.” He’s pretty sure his smile comes out as wobbly as he feels anyway.

Fuji slides his hand down to the end of Kawamura’s shirt and gives it a gentle tug. He turns around to start walking ahead. Kawamura follows until he’s able to keep pace beside Fuji. 

“So now, I’m in university and still trying to find my way forward, while you’re working hard to make your dad proud of you,” Fuji says. “Now that we’re both out of tennis, we’ll never know how far we could have gone as a doubles pair.”

That gets Kawamura to laugh. “Not as far as Oishi and Eiji, I’m sure,” he says.

“Oh, our Golden Pair,” Fuji says. “I wonder if they ever…” He smiles up at Kawamura. “You know.”

Kawamura blushes. “If they ever what?”

“If they ever hated the nickname.” Fuji turns his gaze to the road ahead.

Kawamura huffs. “Fuji,” he says, trying to sound annoyed. But the scolding effect is lost in the face of Fuji’s ringing laughter.

“They definitely hated the nickname,” he confirms. “Of course, they did. But then again, who didn’t?”

“I always thought the nickname was a little corny, honestly.”

The realization that he shouldn’t have said that out loud comes a few beats too late. Now that he’d all but opened the door to the joke, Fuji didn’t waste much time to pounce on it immediately. “ _You_ thought it was corny?” he says. “You, Mister Burning Mode?”

This triggers a landslide of all the things Kawamura had ever said and done with his tennis racket, and he cringes visibly, wanting to crawl inside himself to hide from all the terrible memories. “Oh no,” he says, almost begging. “Please don’t bring that up.”

“Why not? I’m just being honest.” Fuji smiles. “And I still think it’s funny. Maybe it was your way of fitting in, don’t you think? Which was weird, because to anyone else, the more you went _'B_ _urning!,'_ the more you stood out.”

“Do we really have to talk about this now?” Kawamura bristles, much to Fuji’s increasing amusement. “If you’re using this to show off your major again…”

“Only informally, I promise,” Fuji assures, raising a hand. “You can take everything I say with a grain of salt, if you want.”

Kawamura pinches his nose, clearly uncomfortable with the impromptu analysis. But he sighs and gives a small nod, eventually choosing to push on with it anyway, because he has never really been able to say no to Fuji. “Yeah, okay,” he grumbles. He briefly goes through his mind’s files to pluck out some memories. “Fitting in, huh? You might be on to something there. Without Burning Mode, I would have just been plain old Taka-san. Nice, but boring.”

Fuji shakes his head. “But you remember, the team was full of characters back then. If you’d been nice, boring Taka-san, you’d have been the weird one.”

“Which I was.”

“Not all the time,” Fuji argues. “It made you more reliable, I’d like to think.”

“You think?” Kawamura answers. Had he hit his peak back then too, after all? “As a tennis player, maybe,” he says out loud, answering both his and Fuji’s questions at once.

“No,” Fuji rebuts. “You’re a pretty reliable guy overall, Taka-san. Isn’t that why you were chosen to take over the restaurant?”

The comment emboldens Kawamura enough to tease. “Yeah, well,” he says, grinning with a confidence his younger self wouldn’t have been able to match. “We can’t all have shiny university degrees like you, _Tensai Fuji._ ”

Fuji laughs at the comment, instantly sending all sorts of warm tingles to Kawamura’s chest and other assorted insides. “No,” he says. “But we don’t all have your special kind of conviction, do we, Taka-san?”

* * *

_then._

Kawamura had always assumed that Fuji decided to quit tennis for reasons opposite his. Where Kawamura felt tennis’ ever-changing nature was not at all compatible with his ancient power style, he thought that maybe it was exactly this environment that would prove too much for Fuji. He’d view tennis as another trap, in a way – one that would force him to evolve every day, just to keep up with the competition. One would think it would prove stimulating for someone like Fuji. But it was also something Kawamura imagined would lose its luster later on.

Fuji loved his challenges, but he valued his autonomy even more. He’d never get a moment’s peace in tennis. Not when it would become an endless stream of challenges day-in and day-out, until it finally drained everything from him.

“Oh, it’s nothing so dramatic, Taka-san,” Fuji replied, teasing.

Kawamura blushed. “O-oh! I’m sorry, I just assumed… I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

But Fuji was shaking his head. “No, don’t be sorry. I do enjoy it when you go off-tangent like that.” Then, after giving it some thought, he added. “But you’re right about some things. I’m just not built for the tennis grind. Not like our chosen ones.”

He was, of course, talking about Tezuka and Echizen. Of Seigaku’s young talents, they were the only ones who chose to go pro immediately after high school. Momo and Kaidoh would follow them later on, but they would have to finish their studies at university first before making a career in tennis.

“But you might be right about it being unpredictable. Although I didn’t quit because I’d get bored or drained by it. It was more… how should I put this?” Fuji paused, choosing his words. “Let’s just say I wanted to play with a sure thing this time around.”

Kawamura chewed on this. “A degree in Social Sciences is a surer thing than tennis?”

Fuji shrugged. “Why not? It’s a couple more years of graded outputs and professors showing me the way. Maybe I’ll even get a career out of it, if I’m lucky.”

“Luck, huh?” Kawamura repeated. “I didn’t think a prodigy like you would rely on luck.”

“Oh, Taka-san,” Fuji said, chuckling. “There’s nothing a child genius relies on more than luck. Even if I like to pretend otherwise.”

“But I guess I see what you mean. Tennis was always more complicated than hitting the ball.”

“You would know, Mister Power Specialist,” Fuji teased. “You’re surprisingly perceptive about this.”

“What do you think I did in middle school? Did you think I was only good for swinging my racket around?”

Fuji gave him a look, but burst into laughter before he could get a word out.

“Oh my god,” Kawamura whined. “I can’t believe you.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll stop. It was just – with your playing style, you were just –” The rest of Fuji’s comment dissolved into giggles.

Kawamura rolled his eyes. “Asking for it, I’m sure,” he said, although his offended grumble was mostly just for show. “But you know what they say about sports reserves. Almost good enough to be a coach later in life. It must have been all that time I spent sitting, watching you all go at it.”

Fuji wiped some stray tears from his eyes and composed himself. “And if anyone would know anything about how a player thinks, it would be you, Taka-san?”

“Well,” Kawamura said, nervous and self-conscious all over again. He scratched the back of his head. “I may know a thing or two about it.”

“More than me, sometimes,” Fuji said.

“Only sometimes,” Kawamura allowed.

He was far from the nervous wreck he used to be as a child, and now, he’d grown to accept all the compliments he received with grace and thanks. It was part modesty and part self-deprecation; he didn’t get a lot of those all the time anyway, so Kawamura had learned to take what he could get. He’d also learned, very early on, exactly what he was capable of, and it was this self-awareness he often used as a shield against most things. It didn’t mean he was already used to such sudden praise, especially if they came from someone like Fuji.

Fuji chuckled then, like he was able to see right through Kawamura, but didn’t say any more.

* * *

_now._

“This alternate universe version of Taka-san,” Fuji asks, jolting Kawamura out of his thoughts and back into the present. “Would he have been friends with my alternate universe version? Friends like we are now, I mean.”

It’s another outside meeting for them, and now that they are done with their usual walk, they find themselves sitting at a park bench to watch the rest of the afternoon pass them by. Fuji jiggles his cup of expensive coffee before taking a long sip. Kawamura tries not to laugh at the disappointed face Fuji makes as soon as he’s had his fill. He’d always been a tea person anyway. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Kawamura says. “Law of averages, you know? You can’t have too much of a good thing in any lifetime.”

“You think so?”

“Well, sure. Besides, we’d be rivals in that alternate universe, remember? We’d fight over every little thing. Maybe even fight over the same girl, if it ever came down to that.”

“And would it, do you think?” Fuji asks. “Come down to that?”

“Well… maybe only at first. But we’d go right back to our senses after that.” Kawamura pauses. “Probably.”

Fuji laughs. “Only probably?” he says. “Have a little more faith in our friendship, Taka-san!”

“I do!” he answers. “I do. Promise!”

“Good.” Fuji nods, satisfied. “You’re the only friend from middle school I have left, you know. If you didn’t think much about this friendship, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Kawamura already knows this – that much like him, Fuji had fallen out of touch with their old teammates. There were still the occasional catch-ups for Kawamura, like the e-mails from Eiji or Momo that came every once in a blue moon. But between his busy days at the restaurant and everyone else’s busy lives, it had been hard to maintain constant contact. That he’d ended up having regular meet-ups with Fuji, of all people, was a minor miracle in itself.

“Just me, huh?”

“Just you.”

“Not even Eiji?”

“Hmm, only sometimes. I suspect he e-mails me around the same time he e-mails you.”

Kawamura chuckles. Then, he dares to ask: “Not even Tezuka?”

Fuji snorts. “Especially not Tezuka.”

Kawamura throws him a silly glance again, getting ready to tease. “And Echizen?”

“What, him?” Fuji says, scoffing loudly now. “He was a brat.” He smiles at Kawamura’s sudden burst of laughter. “I liked him, but he was a brat.”

“How _were_ you able to hold a conversation with Tezuka anyway?” Kawamura asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. His mind takes him back to the tennis courts, where he’d usually stand off in a corner somewhere, while Fuji stood next to Tezuka in their own kind of silent understanding.

Fuji waves a flippant hand. “That’s easy,” he answers. “Mostly, I’d say something, he’d grunt back, I’d interpret that, and then, respond accordingly.”

Kawamura snorts. “Really, just like that?”

“You get used to it.” Fuji shrugs. “And you, Taka-san?”

“Me? I was always the odd man out on the team, you know that,” he says. “I mean, all of you were great and there’s nothing I’d change about any of it. But you know how it was.”

Fuji looks like he wants to say something serious, but a hum comes out of him instead. “Not even Akutsu?”

It’s a name Kawamura hasn’t heard in some time. He shakes his head. “Not even him,” he affirms. “We lost touch when he moved out after middle school. Haven’t heard from him since.”

“You’ve lost touch with a lot of people,” Fuji says, sounding surprised.

“I didn’t lose touch with you.”

“You would have, if I didn’t keep coming to visit.” Fuji pauses, then tilts his head to the side. “Of everyone on the team, I didn’t think you’d be the one to fall off the radar.”

Kawamura shakes his head. “I didn’t fall off the radar. I’m still here. Always have been. If anything, Kawamura Sushi’s still the only constant thing from our childhood that’s left.” He sucks in a breath, unsure if he should say any more. He takes a look at Fuji’s expectant face and decides to forge ahead. “It’s everyone else who fell off the radar, not me.”

Even Kawamura’s surprised at how neutral the statement sounded. Wasn’t he supposed to sound more bitter about it? Should he have sounded sadder? But that was the way the world moved, wasn’t it? Friends you made as a child won’t always stick around when you grow up. Maybe he’d just gotten old.

“I’m still here,” Fuji says then, like he’d noticed how somber the mood had become between them. “I’m still on your radar.”

“And me on yours.” Kawamura smiles.

They lapse into silence and Kawamura assumes the conversation is done. But it’s exactly when he stretches his arms above his head that Fuji decides to pick the topic back up again. “Taka-san,” he says. “Do you think there’s such a thing as peaking too early?”

Kawamura is no stranger to bouts of self-pity, so he hears Fuji’s actual question – the one that went unsaid, hidden behind the one he’d just said out loud. Fuji had been labeled a genius far too early, Kawamura realizes, so they might have been questions he’s asked himself several times over.

“I think…” Kawamura begins. “I think… you ask so many questions.”

This draws a laugh out of Fuji, who is surprised by the unexpected answer at first, but warms up to the comedy of it when he catches Kawamura’s conscious use of “so,” rather than “too.” Fuji looks immensely grateful for it. “I’m in university now, Taka-san,” he says. “Asking questions is all we ever do. I think I’ll make a career out of it.”

Kawamura smiles. “I can see that,” he says. “But you know, Fuji… I always thought you were cool, even when we were kids. You were always… changing, you know? Always evolving. It was like you weren’t ever going to stop. And that was a lot more impressive for you, since you didn’t care much for tennis.”

Fuji snorts, but doesn’t deny this.

Kawamura continues. “I always liked you for that. You were like this picture with so many hidden angles, so when we thought we knew you, you changed again.”

“I’m surprised that wasn’t a turn-off for any of you.”

“Not at all! I mean, sure, to anybody else, you were just cool and so hard to reach. But we knew you, so to us, you were amazing. You always had something new to show, but then, you’d look so relaxed when you did. Like it was no big deal. Every time you played out there, I’d think, _‘ah, there goes our genius.’_ And there wouldn’t have been anything the other guy across the net could have done to change that.”

Kawamura pauses to draw his breath; not so deep like he’ll launch a Hadoukyou, but solid enough, like he was gearing up for a proper power serve. Then, he lets it out, sure and steady, before leveling his gaze with Fuji’s, so he knows he’s listening. “That’s why I think…” He braces himself for the hit. “I think… that you might have peaked as a tennis player.”

Fuji receives the comment and goes still. 

Kawamura doesn’t give him much time to react, however. He rears back for his follow-up. “You said it yourself before, didn’t you? That you were done with tennis. But it doesn’t mean you’re anywhere near what you want to be, as a person. At least, not yet.”

He draws in another breath, continuing to search Fuji’s expression to make sure he’s still listening. He is.

“But you’re a genius, aren’t you, Fuji? I’m sure you’ll get there soon. And you’ll do it all on your own, too, without any rivals or rules in the way. No more Tezuka or Echizen to think about, right? You know those guys were born for tennis. That’s why they have no choice but to get better at it. We were born for something else. And it’s fine if you don’t know what that is yet.”

There’s a lengthy stretch of silence that comes after that, and for several minutes, Kawamura’s terrified he might have said too much this time. Did he overstep his boundaries? Did he hit that last ball too hard? Had he hurt the other player beyond repair?

But Fuji, as resilient as he is brilliant, smiles widely, and Kawamura is immediately relieved.

It’s when Fuji opens his eyes to look at him that Kawamura forgets to breathe entirely.

“Thank you, Taka-san,” he says softly. “You don’t know how much I needed to hear that.”

Kawamura gives his hand something to do by running it over his head once, then twice more, until he’s almost able to time his breathing with the motion. “I’m glad,” he answers. “I thought…” he trails off, the uncertainty creeping back in. “I thought that maybe… that maybe I might have said too much. That maybe words from a guy like me might –”

Fuji places a hand over his just then, and Kawamura feels just about ready to collapse from the giddy shock. “Might what? Might not matter?” Fuji shakes his head. His eyes are still open, so Kawamura knows he’s serious. “I’ve never once thought less of you for the decisions you’ve made for yourself. Do you honestly think anyone I go to school with now could have told me that?” He shakes his head again, willing Kawamura’s would-be answer to back down. Kawamura dutifully shuts his mouth.

“There’s no one else, Taka-san,” Fuji says, now rubbing his thumb over Kawamura’s large fist. Kawamura almost jolts from the action, not realizing he’d been making a fist this whole time. “No one else. Only you.”

Kawamura starts to say something he hopes is just as heartfelt. “I…” He swallows and searches his mind for something, but comes up short. Game, set, match. “Thank you, Fuji,” he manages.

Fuji is still smiling at him, but he closes his eyes again, solemnity of the moment now past. He gives Kawamura’s hand a final pat. “You know,” he says, tilting his head. “This talk’s made me realize something.”

Kawamura’s internal alarm systems go off, warning him that something weird is about to burst forth from Fuji’s mouth again.

He isn’t wrong.

“Oh? What’s that?”

Fuji smiles even wider, if that’s possible. “That you must not have a girlfriend yet.”

Kawamura almost bites his tongue off. “G-girlfriend?!” he sputters.

“Hmm.” Fuji takes another guess. “Boyfriend?” He’s cackling behind that innocent smile of his, Kawamura just knows it.

“That’s not it, either!” he protests, still flustered. “What makes you think that?!”

“Well, you wouldn’t have said such nice things to me if you already had one,” Fuji says breezily, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say. “You would’ve used them all up by now.”

 _“I could never run out of words for you, Fujiko-chan,”_ is what Kawamura’s burning inside to say.

What comes out instead is: “And what about you, Fuji? No special someone for you?”

Fuji shrugs. “I haven’t had the time. I already have my classes and you to keep me occupied. Yuuta, too, when I see him at home.”

Kawamura doesn’t know why he sighs in relief when he hears that. “And I’m already so busy with the restaurant as it is.” He also doesn’t know why he feels the need to defend his singlehood. “You know me.”

Fuji hums. Then, to Kawamura’s dread, he _tsk's._ “You’d better hurry up and find someone,” Fuji says. “What’ll happen to the restaurant if you don’t?”

“Not you too,” Kawamura groans. “I’m not even thirty yet!”

“I suppose. Do you want to drop the topic now?”

“You’re the one who brought it up!” Kawamura waits for his blush to die down before saying any more. He’s not surprised he has to wait even longer for Fuji to stop his giggling. “Honestly, Fuji!”

Fuji is still giggling.

Whatever this friendship had become to either of them didn’t come to be because of tennis. Kawamura’s sure of this. Their friendship had certainly started at the club and it had deepened because of it. But finding the exact moment the gears started to shift between them is another matter entirely. The ease with which that happened still surprises him sometimes.

When did that happen? When did everything become so easy and familiar between them? When did everything suddenly become _more_ for them – more intimate, more cohesive, more… _right?_ Kawamura still isn’t able to say.

But this was happening to them now, that was all that mattered. Building this with Fuji had come as easy to Kawamura as falling out of his friendships with the other Seigaku regulars, but it was something he'd long grown to accept, and even embrace. People changed, grew up, and moved out of each others’ lives. It was a thing that was known to happen, Nationals win or no Nationals win. But maybe all that meant was that the ones who did end up staying would matter all the more.

Kawamura looks at Fuji again and sees him smiling back at him, as easily as anything.

There was a time that smile could have scared the soul out of anybody.

Today, to Kawamura, it was a smile that could still touch souls – just not in the way their middle school selves could have imagined.

* * *

_then._

They’d been taking a break from their doubles practice when Fuji posed the question to him. “Are you scared of me, Taka-san?” he asked, with absolutely no build-up or warning whatsoever.

Kawamura, who was holding a water bottle then and not his tennis racket, sputtered instead of shouting. He swept frantic eyes across the street courts, then forced his gaze back to Fuji when he found no one there to bail him out.

“O-of course not!” he said, trying to put some bravery in his voice. When it didn’t come out the way he wanted it to, Kawamura decided to keep talking to compensate. “Why would I be? You’re always so nice to me, Fujiko-chan! You’re a good friend to me, you know? A really good one! So, no, I’m not afraid of you, don’t worry about it!”

Fuji took a look at Kawamura’s shaking knees. “But you could snap me like a twig,” he said. “You’re so much bigger than me.”

If Kawamura had been older and slightly more aware, he’d have heard all the other questions that went unsaid then. But he wasn’t, so he babbled on, caring more about appeasing Fuji than being honest.

“I would never!” he said immediately. “Why would I ever want to do that to you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Taka-san,” Fuji said. “I don’t bite.”

Kawamura still didn’t know where Fuji was trying to take this. “I don’t understand, Fuji,” he confessed. “Do you… do you want me to be scared of you? Because I don’t see how that will help our doubles.”

Fuji didn’t laugh at the weakly-tossed joke. “You treat me like I’m made of glass,” he said. “Just like everyone else. I thought I was more than just Tensai Fuji to you.”

A vague idea begun to form in Kawamura’s head. But it was very small and very faint, so he still wasn’t sure. “You are,” he started, hoping to win Fuji over with the standard compliments first. “You’re a very good friend, Fuji. And smart and pretty and a bunch of other great things, too!”

Fuji cracked a smile. “Pretty?”

Kawamura blushed, but didn’t deny it. “You heard me,” he mumbled.

Now, for some reason, he became afraid. Only Fuji could do this to him, he’d come to realize lately – only Fuji could give him this weird, jumbled-up mix of feelings that made his chest grow warm and his feet go cold all at once. It was as if his lungs had grown several sizes bigger, but he was still left struggling to catch his breath anyway. Kawamura wasn’t sure if he hated any of this. But it would help if he could give a name to whatever had been happening to him recently.

“You always say the nicest things to me,” Fuji said, after a while.

“I do,” Kawamura affirmed. “Because you deserve it.”

But Fuji frowned at that. Apparently, it wasn’t the right thing to say. “You think so?” he said. “And if I were to repay that kindness with something worse, Taka-san? Would you still be so nice to me then?”

Kawamura swallowed a breath. He was nowhere near shaping that vague idea into something more concrete, and it was beginning to frustrate him now. “Why…” he began. “Why would you say something like that, Fuji? I know you’re not going to do it anyway. You know it, too. So why even say it?”

Conflict passed Fuji’s features. It was clear he already had something to say about that, but chose to tuck it away, instead. Kawamura felt the frustration start to build up and bubble within him. What if this was what Fuji was trying to say, that they weren’t being honest enough with each other? That maybe they weren’t really friends after all, just tennis partners who were afraid of stepping on each other so they wouldn’t ruin their doubles?

Just the thought of that was enough to send Kawamura into a freezing panic. He didn’t want to mess this up, and it wasn’t only because of their tennis. He shared an easygoing kind of friendship with everyone else at the club, but this… whatever it was that he shared with Fuji was special. Too special for him to let go of, just like that, with too many unanswered questions and uncertain scenarios.

For Kawamura, who had so much feeling burning inside him, it would be fatal to let it all out the way Fuji wanted. If he became completely honest about everything, he would risk burning both Fuji and himself. And by then, he’d end up destroying more than just their doubles.

Honesty, even for the sake of friendship, wasn’t something he could afford. Especially not now, when they were advancing further and further in the Nationals, like they’d talked about wanting all season long.

“Let’s – okay,” Kawamura said, deciding to talk over the mess instead. He sat up straighter and looked at Fuji, straight in the eyes, bracing himself for what was to come next. “I’ll stop doing what you said – treating you like glass and all that stuff. But only if you stop treating me like your dumb muscle friend.”

That got Fuji to open his eyes.

The effect was immediate. Kawamura jolted in his seat, sure that if he’d been standing, he’d have taken a step back from the intensity.

“I… I never…” Fuji trailed off, suddenly speechless.

It was weird to see the team prodigy at a loss for words, and if the situation had been entirely different, then Kawamura would have been morbidly interested in the phenomenon.

In front of him, Fuji was gearing up to try again. “I’ve never thought of you that way, Taka-san,” he said. “I think you’re a very good friend, too. But if… if I’ve ever done anything to make you feel that way, then I’m sorry. I really am.”

Kawamura’s insides twisted in uncomfortable guilt, but he wasn’t able to say why. “It’s…” he started to say. He shook his head to get rid of the discomfort. “It’s… nothing. It’s fine. I mean… I’m sorry, too. About what you said I did.”

Fuji, whose eyes were still open, blinked, then shook his head. “Never mind that now,” he said, eyes sliding shut. He smiled and extended a hand. “Why don’t we make a deal to be more honest with each other from now on? What do you think?”

Kawamura released a breath, relieved that the storm had passed. He grinned and took the hand. “You got it. For Nationals, huh?”

Something in Fuji’s expression faltered then, but it was only for a second. He recovered quickly and returned the gesture.

Had he said too much again? This was, after all, only going to be for tennis. If Kawamura could preserve that for them, then everything would be safe and everyone would be happy. Maybe they would even win Nationals, and somehow, achieving that seemed a more possible outcome to him than developing this friendship he shared with Fuji. There were lots of other smart players out there, anyway. Fuji didn’t really need to keep talking to him. There was nothing to be done if things didn’t turn out the way he wanted. He was used to that already. But if they could hold onto whatever this was they shared, then maybe they’d end up forgetting that any of this ever happened. 

And at least he would still always have this moment to look back on, if worse came to worst.

“It’s a deal, then.”

“You got it.”

They shook hands and Kawamura thought nothing more of the matter.

* * *

_now._

“Don’t you think it’s funny we only ever talk about Seigaku?”

Kawamura shakes himself out of his memories and turns to look at Fuji. He rubs his chin. “It’s not _all_ we talk about,” he replies. “But I do think it makes perfect sense for us, Seigaku alumni, to still talk about Seigaku, now that we’re both no longer in Seigaku. So if you bring that over here in your spare time, it’s fine, really. Unless you’d rather talk about sushi instead?”

“Be serious,” Fuji scolds, but he’s still smiling.

Kawamura raises his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying,” he said.

Fuji settles in his stool – the one he always sat in whenever he visited, just slightly off to the side of the counter, but always in front of Kawamura, so they could talk about everything and nothing at leisure. Honestly, it’s a wonder Kawamura’s father allowed him to continue holding these small conversations with Fuji in the restaurant. That Fuji only ever visited during the restaurant’s slow hours helped, for sure, but it was a wonder to Kawamura all the same.

He's just about to say so to Fuji – maybe to change the topic to something more light-hearted or to lead up to something more serious, he wasn’t sure – but Fuji beats him to the punch.

“Taka-san,” he starts. “Don’t you think we might have some regrets from that season?”

Kawamura goes still, not expecting the sudden change in topic. Before he knows it, he is taken back to middle school and back to those street courts, with Fuji standing against the setting sun. It turns out neither of them had forgotten about that afternoon, after all.

Something changed between them then, back when Fuji and Kawamura made their deal to be more honest with each other. It wasn’t something that happened immediately – they’d played their games the same way, even after that – but gradually, eventually, it was impossible to miss how much closer they became afterwards.

Only, instead of doing what they swore to each other, they’d chosen to be more honest about the little things, instead; just slightly dancing around the things that really mattered, or the things that were still too big and beyond their grasp to speak into existence.

“It’s just… I’ve been thinking,” Fuji says, as if he’s noticed how deep the silence between them had become. “If it’s all we ever talk about on most days, maybe it isn’t just because we’d like to remember things about that part of our lives. Don’t you think it also means there are some things we still regret about middle school?”

Kawamura shakes his head. He wants to scold Fuji for thinking too much again, but he senses that now isn’t the time for it. “But we’ve both moved on from it already,” is what he says instead. “I mean, aren’t we already doing okay right now?”

“Hmm. Yes, we are.” Fuji nods. “But… honestly, Taka-san, I can’t be the only one still thinking about… regrets we might have from before.”

And still even until today, Kawamura couldn’t be sure about a lot of it. The vague idea that first sprouted to life in that moment had been shoved off to the side ever since; hidden and tucked away in a corner he was sure no one else would see.

But Fuji had always seen him, hadn’t he? Even when they’d moved on from tennis and no longer had any reason to stay together after that.

“I…” Kawamura begins, already wanting to change his answer the moment he even thinks about it. “No, I don’t think I have regrets from before, Fuji.”

_“Are you scared of me, Taka-san?”_

Fuji continues to look dead ahead at Kawamura, his expression so unflinching and unwavering, that it’s almost good enough to cover up the sudden softness and vulnerability of his voice. “I see,” he says. “You don’t think we could have changed some things before? Asked the right questions, maybe? Said the right things?”

_“You always say the nicest things to me.”_

“I… I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Fuji,” Kawamura insists, ducking his head to avoid looking at him in the eyes.

But Fuji isn’t taking this for an answer. He shakes his head in a gentle sort of motion, and it is this, more than anything that wills Kawamura to look back at him. “No,” he says, knowing he’s gotten Kawamura’s attention. “No, I think you do know what I’m talking about, Taka-san. You’re just running away from it now. Just like what we’ve always done.”

Kawamura feels a million worms squirming inside him, not unlike the weird, uncomfortable guilt that ate at him when Fuji had apologized to him first back then, in middle school. It’s a stark, disgusting contrast to the giddy, shaky feelings Fuji usually left him with, and Kawamura doesn’t like it a bit.

“It’s alright, Taka-san,” Fuji says, tone light and almost teasing, as if sensing his thoughts. “I don’t bite.”

_“Why don’t we make a deal to be more honest with each other from now on? What do you think?”_

That Fuji refused to look away from the mess makes Kawamura angrier and infinitely more ashamed. But it’s anger he knows is directed more towards himself, because Kawamura knows he could never find it within himself to be truly angry with Fuji. 

When had this happened? He can no longer say. Before he knew it, he’d become attached to Fuji, and Fuji, to him. Nobody back then could have seen such a thing happening, but nobody from their shared past was here to give them an opinion now. Everything about this friendship, after all, had come to be because of gradual, careful progression. So maybe it made natural, logical sense for things to have ended up this way. It’s something Kawamura didn't even dare to imagine, not even back then, when they were playing together and living off the joy of showing their best sides to each other on the courts. But like he's growing to realize now, it's also everything he’s always wanted.

Never before has he felt so badly to _want_ something, even if everything else within him is screaming at him to stop. But this isn’t something he could hide from anymore, especially since every effort to hide the feelings away only made them come back stronger. He had fooled himself for so long by believing in all the worst possible outcomes, but now that Kawamura no longer has his tennis racket to hide behind, he understands that it’s not something he can put off any longer.

Fuji continues to look at him with such patience and understanding, and it’s here Kawamura realizes he could never really refuse him anything, either.

So when Fuji opens his eyes, Kawamura already knows: he’s been waiting for the same thing all this time, too. They were on the same page after all, and so, it was no longer time to be afraid. Maybe he could still face everything head-on, exactly as he’d always done, back when the world still wasn’t so complicated and the friendships, a lot easier to maintain. Maybe it really was possible for things to be as simple as that. 

So Kawamura draws in a breath and tries to locate his center again. Braces his feet on the ground and grits his teeth, forcing all the feelings and power into his arms.

_“It’s a deal, then.”_

It turns out he doesn’t really need his racket to get into Burning Mode, Kawamura thinks faintly, his large hands planted solidly on the counter, and his lips, softly pressed against Fuji’s.

* * *

_.right now_

There’s an alternate universe where Kawamura is big and loud and strong, but only about the inconsequential things that would make any little boy feel great. He would still be in the tennis club and power would still be his style of play, but that would be all there was to him. Beyond that, he is still plain old Taka-san: nice, but boring, and completely content to let the world run its course without him.

“And after that?” Fuji says, tilting a smile up towards Kawamura from across the counter. “What happens to him after that?”

Kawamura starts to think about it, but short-circuits when he feels Fuji’s fingers still tightly wrapped around his. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “But I bet he'd have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, well. His loss.” Fuji chuckles and angles his face up for another kiss. He’s allowed to – the restaurant has long since closed now, and it’s just Kawamura and him downstairs; him, on his usual place at the counter, just slightly off to the side of the counter, and Kawamura, standing across him, as usual.

“Well, if we’ve stopped talking about alternate universes now,” Fuji says. “Maybe it’s about time you get out from there and come here, so we can talk about _this_ universe.”

Kawamura laughs, but does as he’s told.

And as soon as he does, he’s grabbed by the collar and tugged down, down, down, until his lips sweetly meet Fuji’s for the third time that evening.

“Burning, baby,” he says the minute they part for air, because the moment is just begging for it.

Fuji’s bubbling with laughter at the statement, and Kawamura takes a moment to feel pleased that he’s the reason for that reaction.

“Taka-san,” Fuji says. “Taka-san.”

“Fuji,” Kawamura says in response. He takes a seat on the stool beside Fuji’s.

“Taka-san,” Fuji says again. “Took us long enough.”

This time, it’s Kawamura’s turn to laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess it did. Sorry it took me a while.”

“No, not at all,” Fuji says. “I’d say we both took our time getting here.”

“I guess this means we won’t be talking about Seigaku anymore, huh?”

Fuji chuckles. “Oh, we can still talk about it.” He puts a hand up to cup Kawamura’s face. “Can’t help it if all our best memories of each other are from middle school.”

Kawamura grins and claps his hand over Fuji’s. “How’d you know?” he asks. He doesn’t need to elaborate. Fuji already knows what he’s referring to.

“We’ve been dancing around this for about three years now, Taka-san,” Fuji says. “Although it was much harder to keep it up than to get out with it, believe me.”

“Don’t worry. I know just what you’re talking about.” Then, Kawamura’s voice softens and he becomes hesitant, but he still has to know. “Why me?”

“Why you?” Fuji repeats. “You know me. Always thinking about the sure thing.”

“You think I’m a sure thing?”

“After everything you’ve said and done for me, Taka-san, there’s nothing else in my life I’m more sure about than you.”

Kawamura feels his heart knocking against his chest, but it’s a more pleasant sensation than what he used to do to himself, when he’d hold back all his emotions until it started to hurt. “Well,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere, Fuji. You don’t have to worry.”

“See?” Fuji says. “Sure and reliable. There’s really no one else, Taka-san.”

It occurs to Kawamura then that tennis had been confining and limiting for the both of them in more ways than one. It’s where their friendship had started, no doubt, and it’s where it had deepened and developed. But tennis had also been a crutch for them, always conveniently there when they didn’t feel ready to open up to each other just yet.

Everything they had ever done before, they claimed to do for tennis. But even that had to end when Kawamura left that world behind in high school – by doing so, he’d unwittingly taken his first steps outside their comfort bubble.

“I think…” Fuji says, as if sensing Kawamura’s thoughts. “I think I only started to realize when you left tennis in high school. I thought about you working towards your dream and I thought about myself. I wondered why I felt like I was stalling when you were already working so hard.” He shakes his head. “I know what you think of me. But you’ve always been ahead of me in your own way, Taka-san. And I’d like to help you keep moving forward, if you’ll let me.”

Kawamura blushes, hotly and deeply, unsure if he’ll even be able to string so many words together to tell Fuji how thankful he really feels. He smiles at him instead, because Kawamura is a new person now, and no longer dense enough to keep talking when he finds himself unsure about his feelings. He’s gone a long way from the person he was in middle school. Kawamura’s glad for the change.

So, he says, with all the honesty he can muster, “Of course, Fuji. But only if you let me do the same for you.”

Fuji chuckles and leans in for another kiss. “It’s a deal, then.”

Kawamura smiles back and closes the distance between them. “You got it.”

* * *

_before_

He had just managed to squeeze his right foot into the first of his outside shoes, just like he did every afternoon, so he hadn’t really expected to hear Fuji call out to him.

“Taka-san!”

Kawamura looked up instantly and nearly crashed to the floor. He continued to hop on his right foot until he was able to regain his balance. By the time he was able to stand up straight again, Fuji had caught up to him, both feet tucked neatly into his shoes and ready to head out. Kawamura made an awkward chuckle, chucked his last outside shoe to the ground and jammed his left foot into it.

“Fuji!” he said, already beginning his walk home. “What’s up? No practice today?”

Fuji walked beside him, never once losing his footing to keep up with Kawamura’s huge strides. “No,” he said. “Captain let us out early today. I think the third years wanted to have the afternoon to themselves.”

Kawamura snuck a glance towards Fuji, feeling just a little envious at the sight of his sports bag. “That’s that for our first year as high school students, huh?” he said.

“Time flies,” Fuji agreed. “Momo and Kaidoh will be here soon.”

“That’s great!” Kawamura said immediately. But then, he remembered what little terrors they used to be in their first years as middle schoolers, and his face fell. “Oh, wait…”

Fuji laughed, remembering the same things. “Don’t worry too much, Taka-san,” he said. “Maybe they’ll be more mature this time.”

“Gee, I hope so. They’re great, but they were such a handful for us, even back then.”

“You should be glad you won’t be around to see that anymore.”

“Oh, believe me, I am.”

They looked at each other and shared a beat of silence together before bursting into laughter.

“Have I been the only one updating you on the team all year, Taka-san?” Fuji suddenly asked, throwing Kawamura off-focus. He opened his eyes, his gaze turning feral. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one who still talks to you about these things.”

Kawamura panicked. “Ah, no!” he protested. “Inui walks with me sometimes. Just not right now, because he’s got practice –” He caught himself. “No, wait! He said he had something to finish at the lab today. That’s right! Ah, silly me, so forgetful sometimes.”

But Fuji had stopped listening a while ago. “Maybe I’ll have to wrangle Oishi into organizing one of those team outings again.”

“Please don’t.” Kawamura groaned, already imagining how insufferable his father was going to be at the prospect of closing the restaurant for another party.

“You’re right.”

Kawamura put a hand to his chest and breathed a sigh of relief.

“We should wait until Echizen gets here. Then, it’ll be a real party.”

“Fuji!”

Fuji laughed. “Relax, Taka-san. We’re not about to do anything without getting your permission first.”

“But only for restaurant matters,” Kawamura said, quick to remind him of the fact. “Otherwise, you guys are on your own.”

“You got it.”

Soon, they arrived at Kawamura Sushi, and it took Kawamura all of three seconds to realize that Fuji was still standing there beside him at the door. “Fuji!” he said.

“Taka-san,” Fuji returned. He slid the door open and stepped inside the restaurant without a care in the world.

“Fuji-kun!” Kawamura’s father greeted from inside.

“Kawamura-san,” Fuji answered, settling down at a stool by the counter, just a little off to the side and hidden near the wall.

“Fuji!” Kawamura said again, darting inside after him after sliding the door shut.

“Takashi!” his father barked from his place behind the counter. “Is that how you greet our customers?”

Kawamura flushed. “Sorry!” he called back. Then, to Fuji: “Sorry, Fuji. You surprised me, that’s all. Here, have a seat.”

Fuji smiled up at him from his seat.

Kawamura almost slapped his face. “I mean –” he started. He gave up and shrugged when Fuji started laughing. “Oh, forget it.”

“Taka-san,” Fuji scolded lightly. “I did tell you I would be back. Or do I look like the type who doesn’t keep his promises?”

“I-it’s not that!” Kawamura protested. “It’s… it’s just…”

Fuji placed a hand under his chin and leaned in his seat, curious. “Hmm?”

Kawamura huffed and rubbed a nervous hand over his head. “It’s just that I thought you’d be at those trendy coffee shops, you know? This place can be a little… old-fashioned, sometimes.”

Fuji’s mouth dropped open slightly, not expecting the answer.

“But only sometimes!” Kawamura said. “And definitely don’t tell my dad I said that!”

“Don’t worry, Taka-san,” Fuji said, still laughing. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Kawamura huffed and went behind the counter to fetch an order sheet instead, even if he already knew what Fuji was going to order. Fuji, on his part, had chosen to peruse their available dishes for the day, even if he almost always ordered the same things anyway. But the sight of it all – of Fuji sitting in contentment on the stool in front of him, of Kawamura standing thereto wait for his order, of the restaurant’s busy sounds of life washing over them – was so very familiar and welcome, that it was enough to bring a smile to Kawamura’s face.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, because he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t sure how long this moment would last or if he would ever get another one like it. But he wasn’t going to complain about that now. He’d get to that moment in due time. Right now, all that mattered was that Fuji was here today and looked like he was here to stay – at least, only until tonight.

“I think I will,” Fuji answered, returning Kawamura’s smile. “Thanks for having me, Taka-san.”

Kawamura chuckled and winked at him. “It’s never a problem, Fujiko-chan.”


End file.
